Third Capture - Michelangelo
"Don, Donatello, can you hear me? Raph, report in. Raphael!" Leo's voice lifted in frustration as he again received nothing but static in reply to his call.
"Anything bro'?" Mikey asked as he landed next to his brother.
Leo shook his head. "More of the same. I take it you couldn't reach either of them?"
"I tried from the high spot a couple of buildings over dude," Mikey said. "I even called you, but all I got was that same creepy static. Something's messing with our communications."
"Or someone," Leo said with a frown. "Don and Raph should have checked in over twenty minutes ago. I don't like this. If they couldn't reach us, they'd return to our starting point."
"That's here," Mikey pointed out unnecessarily. "Do you think they went back to the lair?"
"No," Leo said, the concerned look on his face speaking volumes. "They know the procedure. We'll back track their route; you take the other side of the street, I'll cover this one. Stay within sight of each other and signal if you see anything. No sound."
"Gotcha," Mikey said as he jogged to the edge of the building and disappeared from view.
Leo gave him a minute and once he saw Mikey appear on the opposite rooftop, he started running. It took all of his willpower to remain calm, although he felt like beating himself up for breaking their patrol into pairs. The strange feeling he'd had earlier should have been all the warning he needed; Raph would certainly have gone with his gut instincts if he'd been out here on his own.
Mikey kept abreast of Leo as they ran. This was one of those times when Mikey didn't feel like joking. He'd seen the expression on Leo's face and knew his oldest brother's burden as leader weighed heaviest in these types of situations. Leo would focus on getting them all safely home and then beat himself up for not being able to see into the future.
One of Mikey's functions in life was to not allow Leo to become too morose but if they didn't get Don or Raph back from wherever they were, there was no way Leo would ever recover.
They hadn't gone far when Mikey happened upon Don's mask. Stopping dead in his tracks, Mikey stared at the purple piece of fabric as though willing it to be a figment of his imagination.
Heart pounding in his chest, Mikey reached down and picked it up, turning to wave it in Leo's direction. Leo halted immediately and came to the edge of the building he was on, staring at the mask with the same look of anxiety that Mikey was himself feeling. Holding up a palm, Mikey signaled for Leo to stay where he was.
Once he knew that Leo would wait, Mikey began a quick but thorough search of the rooftop. It was easy to tell from the scuffed asphalt and the amount of disturbed dust that a major scuffle had taken place.
Then there was the blood. Droplets were scattered across the rooftop, but there was also a couple of larger pools.
Mikey squatted next to one, placing a finger in it to gauge how long it had been there. It was no longer warm, but it hadn't gotten tacky yet, which told him that the blood was a recent deposit.
Wide eyed, Mikey stood up and stepped over to the building's ledge so that he was directly across from Leo. Lifting the finger that he'd dipped into the blood, he watched as Leo processed the information.
Long ago the family had devised a sign language system unique to their three fingered hands. When Leo began signing to him, Mikey knew his eldest brother thought the danger was still nearby.
"Did you find anything else?" Leo signed.
Mikey shook his head and signed back, "More blood. Some drops; two pools. Footprints made by shoes. Bits of plastic. Looks like a big fight."
Leo appeared to be thinking about that. Mikey carefully tucked the purple mask into his belt, knowing Don would want it when they found him.
The words, 'if we find him' tried to float through the back of Mikey's mind but he stomped on that thought.
If Leo asked Mikey for his suggestions on how to go about finding their brothers, Mikey wasn't going to be very helpful. Coming up with plans was Leo's job. If there was anything remotely resembling a useful clue, Mikey would be happy to point it out.
Their com links were useless and he and Leo both knew that probably meant Bishop. Without the shell cells, there was no way to track either Don or Raph. Without Don it was going to be near impossible to locate Bishop.
Since Leo knew this as well as Mikey did, there wasn't any reason to bring it up.
The dual slamming of what sounded like car doors snapped Mikey from his reverie and he leaned over the ledge to see what was going on. Six identically dressed men were climbing out of a black van that was parked almost two blocks away.
Turning his head, Mikey saw that Leo was watching the men as well. When Mikey looked towards the van again, he saw the men lift the cover off of a manhole and begin descending one by one into the sewers.
"Psst!"
Mikey glanced up to see Leo trying to get his attention.
"Bishop is after one of them," Leo signed.
It was pretty obvious who Leo meant. One or both of their brothers had managed to get underground before Bishop's people could grab them. Bishop was putting resources to work in trying to reacquire them and Mikey had no illusion about how many men were already in the sewer tunnels. Mikey guessed the six they just saw were the late arrivals to Bishop's little game of 'hide and seek'.
He and Leo clearly had no choice but to follow Bishop's men in the hopes that they would lead the turtles to their brothers. Mikey waited for Leo to make that decision official.
Leo pointed at Mikey, then to himself, and then down. Mikey nodded his understanding and then descended from his building into the alley below. Before he reached the ground he saw a van parked there, the back doors wide open. Approaching it cautiously, Mikey saw that it was empty and that someone had left it in a hurry.
Just inside the van on the floorboard were the remains of a sizeable net; sliced into pieces by a very sharp blade. He grabbed a section of it and tucked it into his belt before leaving the alley to join Leo on the opposite side of the street.
The pair met in a darkened alcove beneath a loading dock, the space cramped but completely hidden from view.
Before Leo could say anything, Mikey asked, "We're going after them right?"
Leo looked at him for a moment and then finally answered, "Yes. We have to rescue our brothers but we need to be smart about it."
"Dude, you didn't think I was gonna jump down after those guys and yell 'put 'em up' did you? That's Raph's gig. I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page," Mikey said.
That earned Mikey a quickly flashed smile from his otherwise stoic brother. "Our primary objective is to find Raph and Don, not to engage Bishop's men in a fight. There are probably a lot more down there than just those last six."
Leo's statement confirmed what Mikey had been thinking and then he remembered what he'd found in the alley. "Oh!" Mikey exclaimed as he dug out the piece of netting. "There's a van parked in the alley next to the building where I found Don's mask. The back is open and empty except for parts of a big net laying inside."
His brother took the section of net from Mikey and examined it. "This was cut," Leo said, verifying Mikey's own observation. "If I was going to hazard a guess, I'd say either Raph or Don got caught in this and the other rescued him. That means they're probably together."
"They're gonna get caught together too if we don't do something quick," Mikey said, beginning to feel anxious. "If Bishop has men going into the tunnels from different spots around here, they're gonna have our bro's boxed in."
"If we rush down there without thinking it through, Raph and Don won't be the only ones boxed in," Leo warned. "Now if I were Bishop, I'd establish a perimeter around this location in a five mile radius. At the outer edge of my circle I'd have enough men drop into the sewers to cut off my quarries escape. What we have to do is go in behind Bishop's people and clear a path by picking them off one by one."
"You know they're probably talking to each other," Mikey said.
Leo nodded, looking past Mikey as he concentrated. "It's a chance we'll have to take. If we move fast enough they won't have time to regroup before we get Don and Raph out of there."
Mikey wasn't the tactician that Leo was, but he understood strategy well enough to comprehend what Leo meant for them to do.
"We're gonna have to separate in order for this to work, right bro'? 'Cause if we don't we won't be able to punch a big enough hole in Bishop's goon squad to escape back through when we find Raph and Donny."
"I dislike having to separate since we have no way to communicate with each other," Leo said with a grimace. "How well do you remember this five mile stretch of tunnels?"
Mikey shrugged, getting antsy with each passing minute. "Well enough. Why, do you want to meet up someplace?"
"Next to the plumbing fixtures store on Harper is that service door the city uses to access the room where the electrical grid is for this section of their matrix. There's another door inside that leads into the tunnels. Do you know where that is?" Leo asked.
"Yeah, I used that once as a shortcut when Raphie and I were racing," Mikey said with a small grin.
"Okay then, it should take about ten minutes to backtrack five miles and get into the sewers," Leo said. "Once we're underground we'll have to move slower, so allow twenty minutes for making your way back to this location. If you don't find Raph or Don, go back towards your starting point, turn east for a little ways, and then repeat the search pattern.
"I'll work towards the west. We'll yo-yo like that two times each and then meet in that room. It should take us about an hour and a half each and we'll allow an extra half hour in case either of us needs to dodge Bishop's men. If one of us doesn't show in that time, the other should return to the lair and apprise Master Splinter of the situation."
"Do we really need to go the whole five miles back?" Mikey asked. "Bishop's men are all probably closer than that."
"We aren't going to take chances, Mikey," Leo said. "The five miles is just a guess on my part. As it is, if Bishop set his search radius out at ten miles we're going to be in trouble."
"Couldn't we just jump a group of them and commandeer one of their radios? It would save us having to meet up," Mikey said.
"What part of 'don't engage the enemy' didn't you understand?" Leo asked, a trifle impatiently. At the look on his youngest brother's face, Leo's voice softened. "I know you're worried; so am I, but right now our biggest assets are stealth and surprise. Would you know how to switch channels on one Bishop's radios to a frequency that Bishop couldn't overhear? I wouldn't, so let's depend on what we have right now and not on what we might be able to acquire."
Mikey took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wordlessly conceding Leo's point. "I head east, you go west. Sounds like a plan bro'."
Leo clapped Mikey on the shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Let's go."
They broke cover and separated, both taking to the rooftops in order to move faster. Mikey soon lost sight of Leo and felt a touch of dread in his gut; he hated not knowing where his brothers were when someone like Agent Bishop was after them.
Exactly five miles from the building where he'd found Don's mask, Mikey lifted the cover off of a manhole and dropped into the sewers. When he hit the ground he remained in a squat as his eyes adjusted to the change in light.
Though Mikey listened carefully he heard nothing and he wasn't sure if he was happy about that. Hearing sounds would mean he'd found someone, hopefully his brothers, but it could also mean he'd found Bishop's men. No noise meant he'd have to venture further into the tunnels, purposely making his way towards people who would love nothing more than to toss a net over him.
Settling into a slow jog, Mikey moved back in the direction from which he'd just come. A mile in he passed under an open manhole and knew that he'd found one of the spots where Bishop's men had entered the tunnels.
Proceeding more cautiously, Mikey kept one hand on his nunchucks, ready for a split second draw. Even at their widest points, the sewer tunnels were still a fairly confined space and coming up on six trained men in such quarters would place Mikey on the low end of any odds someone might care to give.
A low murmur of voices froze him in his tracks and Mikey pressed himself into the deep shadows. Scooting along a wall, Mikey peered around the corner into an intersecting tunnel and saw several men pass by, their flashlights shining in all directions. Neither Raph nor Don was with them and after waiting for a count of ten seconds, Mikey resumed his search.
Mikey guessed he'd gone a little over two miles in when he heard more voices. Dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled forward, coming up on a bend in the tunnel. Keeping his head near the ground, Mikey looked to see what was happening.
Ahead of him stood a low slung maintenance cart, its engine running and one man behind the wheel. A deep growl made Mikey's heart skip a beat and then Raph came into view, his hands behind his back and some sort of metal collar around his neck. The collar was attached to a long pole and the man who held it was trying to force Raph into the back of the cart.
"Do you want to be shocked again?" the man asked with a sneer. "Get in!"
"Fuck you!" Raph shouted, twisting his body and planting one foot against the side of the cart, pushing away from it even as two other men tried to force him inside.
The man who was controlling the collar attachment pressed something on the pole and Raph's body suddenly stiffened, a harsh grunt escaping his mouth. He slumped to the ground, knees and hands on the hard packed earth and his head lowered.
Mikey did a quick count and saw eight men, all identically dressed, all wearing dark shades, and all bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bishop.
"Clones," Mikey thought "Bishop sure is in love with himself."
Not giving himself time to think about it too much, Mikey slithered forward, getting as close to the group as he could without being seen. Sliding both nunchucks from his belt, Mikey started spinning them just before he leaped.
His surprise entry took one of the men down without a fight, the heavy nunchuck slamming into the man's head with a crunch. The blow broke the clone's glasses and as they fell off his face, Mikey had time to think that he hoped Bishop bought them by the bushel.
The sound of the clone's fall elicited shouts from his mates and they all turned in Mikey's direction. Figuring that the man controlling Raph's shock collar wouldn't relinquish his hold, Mikey ignored him and concentrated his fight on the other six.
Mikey bounced up quickly, flipping over the head of the nearest clone and simultaneously swinging backwards with his nunchuck. The strike caught the man on the back of his head and sent him crashing to the ground. Mentally erasing that man from the fight, Mikey no sooner landed than he was leaping again to avoid the baton that another clone swung at him.
Coming down on top of a clone's shoulders, Mikey dug his heels into the man's chest and swept his nunchucks around, aiming at the heads of the men who were trying to swarm him. Even as he struck, Mikey saw the man he'd just felled rising to his feet.
Using the handles on his nunchucks, Mikey smacked the man he was riding on the top of his head, dropping him to his knees. As the clone fell, Mikey rolled off of him, smashing against the other men's legs and bowling them over like giant pins.
The tight quarters might not allow him much space to maneuver, but it had its advantages. As the clones all tried to catch Mikey, they began to get in each other's way, giving him time to spring off a wall and fly into their midst with his nunchucks swinging.
Three men went down under his onslaught and Mikey kicked a fourth one away from him. "Haha, where'd you learn those moves? Klutzes are us?" Mikey taunted, facing one of the clones.
When the man charged at him, Mikey waited until the last second and then stepped aside, hitting the man's head as hard as he could. Blood splattered as the force of the nunchuck caved in the man's skull.
Thinking there were only two left in the battle, Mikey's eyes went wide as the men he'd hit began to stand up. Behind him, the man with the crushed skull staggered to his feet, twisting his head to the left and right before coming at the stunned turtle once more.
"Bishop's been experimenting again!" Mikey sang out as he darted away from the men, racing towards his brother.
Raph's head lifted and in a tight voice he rasped, "Get their glasses!"
Glasses? Mikey noticed then that the only man who had stayed down after being hit was the one whose glasses he'd busted.
Lunging at the man who was holding Raph, Mikey's nunchuck swept past the clone's upraised arm and landed unerringly against the center of his face. The glasses shattered into tiny pieces and the clone went stiff just before keeling over.
Raph slumped onto his side, panting heavily and Mikey raced past him, the deadly arc of his nunchucks making quick work of the glasses the other clones were wearing. Within minutes Mikey had smashed through the entire group, the reach of his weapon and his agility an advantage over their shorter batons.
Dropping to his knees next to Raph, Mikey pulled a shuriken from his belt and used the sharpened edge to cut the zip tie off of his brother's wrists.
"You okay Raphie?" Mikey asked, helping Raph to his feet.
"Yeah," Raph said, grabbing at the metal collar that still circled his neck. "Help me get this damn thing off."
Mikey found the button that kept the collar closed and released his brother. Raph tossed the thing aside and followed Mikey away from the downed clones.
Together they raced through the sewers with Mikey leading the way towards the rendezvous point.
"Where's Leo?" Raph asked gruffly.
"We split up to look for you," Mikey said. "Where's Donny?"
"They knocked him out with some kind of shot and I had ta stash him," Raph answered. "He had time ta tell me about the glasses before he went down. They waited until they could grab him first ta spring their trap; I heard 'em say so when they reported ta Bishop. Why did they want Don before anybody else?"
Mikey clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Shell bro', that's obvious. Didn't you say it was Don who told you to break their glasses? If they get Donny first, he can't figure out what makes those clones tick. Gotta be something about those glasses besides the fact they can't function without them."
Raph looked back over his shoulder and groaned. "I wish I'd have thought of that. Damn! I should have grabbed a pair so Don could study them."
"You mean like these?" Mikey said, displaying a pair of clone glasses. He grinned at the look on Raph's face. "I thought they were kinda cool looking, so I snagged a pair."
"Whatever ya' do, don't put them on," Raph warned. "Ain't no telling what they'd do ta ya'. Where the shell are we going?"
"To the city's electrical room over on Harper," Mikey answered, handing the glasses to Raph. "That's where I'm supposed to meet Leo."
Raph came to an abrupt stop, forcing Mikey to do so as well. "Ya' go meet him; I gotta go back and get Donny. I don't know how long that stuff they shot him up with is gonna last, but I don't want him coming to and wandering into Bishop's hands. I got a feeling Don and these glasses are the key ta beating Bishop."
"I'll go with . . . ." Mikey began.
"No, ya' go meet Leo. Ya' know how he is about sticking ta plans and ya' gotta tell him what's going on. Bishop's clones already searched the area where I hid Don so we'll be fine," Raph insisted.
Mikey reluctantly watched as Raph loped off, leaving before his younger brother could offer anymore arguments. Realizing that he was wasting time they didn't have, Mikey continued along their previous route, determined to get to Leo and tell him about Bishop's clone army.
It wasn't that he forgot to be cautious; Mikey had already traversed this set of tunnels without seeing anyone. His active mind was so busy harrying the problem they faced that he felt safe enough to travel on auto pilot.
When a group of clones stepped right out in front of him, Mikey nearly ran into them. As he reached for his nunchucks, his arms were seized and yanked backwards, making him drop his weapons.
Mikey quickly understood the mistake of allowing so many to jump him at once. With their combined weight piling on his carapace, the clones forced Mikey to the ground, neutralizing his ability to use his legs by sitting on them.
Still Mikey struggled, shifting his body from side to side and flexing his muscles as he tried to dislodge the men. Then one of them laughed and when Mikey looked up to see what was so funny, another of the clones smashed a fist into his jaw.
The blow jerked Mikey's head to the side, his chin scraping along the tunnel floor, taking a layer of skin from his face. It stung enough to make Mikey angry and he expanded his chest against the ground and bucked upwards, throwing one man off of him.
Before he had the chance to move further, another clone landed hard on Mikey's shoulders, driving the wind out of his lungs. Gasping for air, Mikey watched as the clone that had laughed squatted next to his head and displayed a syringe for Mikey's viewing pleasure.
Even as Mikey tried to slither away from the man, the needle bit into his skin and he felt liquid heat enter his body. Within seconds Mikey's eyelids grew heavy and when the effort to keep them open got to be too much of a battle, Mikey sank into unconsciousness.
Mikey's head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and something that sounded exactly like a vacuum cleaner roared inside his ears. He wanted to shout at Leo for waking him up; it was rude to vacuum the floor so early in the morning.
Prying his lids open, Mikey discovered through bleary eyes that he wasn't in his bedroom at the lair. It was only after he lifted a hand to rub at his eyes that he realized he wasn't tied up and in a flash his memory came back.
He'd been asleep at the wheel, wandering through tunnels full of Bishop's clones with his mind on something else and had walked right into a trap. Mikey knew he was going to have to come up with a feasible reason for his getting caught that wouldn't divulge his lapse in attention or Leo wouldn't let him hear the end of it for months.
Mikey began to look around and saw that he was in a lab of some sort. The walls were lined with desks covered in computer equipment, a section of tables held microscopes, test tubes, and other equipment Mikey didn't recognize but Don probably would.
All of those things look slightly distorted and Mikey thought that his eyes hadn't fully recovered yet, but then he noticed that his own hand was perfectly clear. Reaching out, Mikey's hand connected with a sheet of glass and then he understood the reason for his altered sight.
When Mikey tried to uncurl his body from the uncomfortable position he was lying in, his feet hit another wall. He was in some sort of small square enclosure, the walls made of glass and the floor and ceiling composed of metal.
Bringing his knees under him, Mikey managed to stand. The top of his prison was only a few inches above his head and he tried pushing at it, but it was a secure fit. Mikey knew he'd have to break the glass to get out but when he dipped his hand to his belt for his nunchucks, he remembered that the clones had made him drop them.
As much as he hated the thought of getting glass in the skin on his knuckles, Mikey doubled up his fist and punched a panel as hard as he could. Not only did it not break, but the wall didn't even vibrate beneath the blow.
Pulling his hand back, Mikey shook it and then opened and closed the hand a few times, trying to ignore the pain. If the space were larger he could take a running leap at it and possibly break through by kicking the panel loose, but the enclosure was maybe two feet by two feet at the most. He certainly wasn't going to build up enough momentum to do any good; shell, he wasn't even going to be able to extend his leg.
"Ah, Michelangelo. I see you've discovered that your new home is completely unbreakable," Agent John Bishop said, slowly walking towards the young turtle.
"I'll bet when one of my brothers shoves your head through it that it'll break," Mikey snapped back, hiding how unhappy he was to see this particular human.
"It would certainly be gratifying if they would try," Bishop said. "Then I wouldn't have to spend so much time and effort in attempting to locate them."
"I thought you said our DNA was useless," Mikey said. "Why are you after us again? The four of us can't possibly be a big enough blip on your radar that you'd waste resources on another attempt to capture us."
"You aren't all that significant other than as a thorn in my side," Bishop admitted, walking over to a set of control panels. "And you're right; normally I wouldn't allocate funds towards a mere attempt to catch you four turtles. It so happens that my scientists believe they are very close to a breakthrough that a minute study of your mutation would be a great help with.
"In fact, once they've reached a certain point in their research, they are going to need a number of your internal organs. Since the experiments have a short shelf life, we decided it would be best to capture all of you now and preserve you until you're needed."
"Preserve?" Mikey asked, glancing around again. That was when he noticed three containers identical to his own lined up to his left.
"Exactly," Bishop answered, pressing a series of buttons and then turning to face Mikey once more. "I would suggest you don't fight it; that only makes it painful. Of course you won't listen."
Mikey barely heard him because another sound caught his attention. A gurgling noise at the bottom of his enclosure drew his eyes down, and he saw a clear liquid seeping in around his feet. The smell told him it wasn't water.
Searching frantically for a way to stop the flow of the liquid, Mikey didn't notice that Bishop had started to chuckle. Standing with his arms folded across his chest, Bishop was clearly enjoying the show.
The liquid rose quickly, wetting his knee pads, then his belt, and finally coming up level with Mikey's neck. Panicked, the young turtle beat at the glass with the side of his fist, pushing against it with his other hand as he tried to separate the panels from each other. His eyes were wide as the liquid reached his chin and he saw the tails of his bandana floating in the foul smelling stuff.
As the liquid rose above his head and completely filled the enclosure, Mikey continued to struggle, holding his breath to keep the stuff out of his lungs. He held on as long as he could, but turtles required oxygen and eventually he succumbed to his natural instinct to inhale.
The last thing Mikey saw before the world went black was Agent Bishop cleaning his glasses.
TBC….